We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust
So great a charge from thine own custody?

Dro. E. I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at dinner. I from my mistress come to you in post;

If I return, I shall be post indeed;

For she will score your fault upon my pate.

Methinks, your maw, like mine, should be your clock,1 And strike you home without a messenger.

Ant. S. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of

season;

Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.

Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?

Dro. E. To me, sir? why you gave no gold to me. Ant. S. Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,

And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.

Dro. E. My charge was but to fetch you from the

mart

Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.
My mistress, and her sister, stay for you.

Ant. S. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me,
In what safe place you have bestowed my money;
Or I shall break that merry sconce 2 of yours,
That stands on tricks when I am undisposed.
Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
Dro. E. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.-
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

Ant. S. Thy mistress' marks! what mistress, slave, hast thou?

Dro. E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;

She that doth fast, till you come home to dinner, prays, that

And

you will hie you home to dinner.

1 The old copy reads cook. The emendation is Pope's.

2 So in Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 1:-"Why does he suffer this rude knave to knock him about the sconce?" Sconce also signified a fortification, commonly round, as well as the human head.

Ant. S. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face, Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.

[Strikes him. Dro. E. What mean you, sir? For God's sake, hold your hands;

Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.

[Exit DROMIO E. Ant. S. Upon my life, by some device or other, The villain is o'er-raught' of all my money. They say, this town is full of cozenage;2 As, nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye; Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind; Soul-killing witches, that deform the body; Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, And many such like liberties of sin.3 If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner. I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave; I greatly fear my money is not safe.

[Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A public Place.

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.

Adr. Neither my husband, nor the slave returned, That in such haste I sent to seek his master!

Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

Luc. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him, And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner. Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.

A man is master of his liberty;

1 i. e. overreached.

2 This was the character which the ancients gave of Ephesus.
3 That is, licentious actions, sinful liberties.

Time is their master; and when they see time,
They'll go, or come. If so, be patient, sister.

Adr. Why should their liberty than ours be more?
Luc. Because their business still lies out o' door.
Adr. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
Luc. O, know, he is the bridle of your will.
Adr. There's none but asses, will be bridled so.
Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lashed with woe.1
There's nothing, situate under Heaven's eye,
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world, and wild watery seas,
Endued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords.
Then let your will attend on their accords.

Adr. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
Luc. Not this, but troubles of the marriage bed.
Adr. But, were you wedded, you would bear some

sway.

Luc. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.

Adr. How if your husband start some other where?
Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear.
Adr. Patience, unmoved, no marvel though she
pause; 2

They can be meek, that have no other cause.3
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry;

But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain:
So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me.
But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begged patience in thee will be left.

Luc. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.— Here comes your man; now is husband nigh.

your

1 Steevens proposes to read leashed, i. e. coupled.

2 To pause is to rest, to be quiet. 3 i. e. no cause to be otherwise.

Enter DROMIO of Ephesus.

Adr. Say, is your tardy master now at hand? Dro. E. Nay, he is at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness.

Adr. Say, didst thou speak with him? Know'st thou his mind?

Dro. E. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine® ear. Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.

Luc. Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning?

Dro. E. Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce understand them.

Adr. But say, I pr'ythee, is he coming home?

It seems he hath great care to please his wife.

Dro. E. Why, mistress, sure my master is hornmad.

Adr. Horn-mad, thou villain?

Dro. E. I mean not cuckold-mad; but, sure, he's stark mad.

When I desired him to come home to dinner,
He asked me for a thousand marks in gold.
'Tis dinner-time, quoth I; My gold, quoth he:
Your meat doth burn, quoth I; My gold, quoth he:
Will you come home?1 quoth I; My gold, quoth he:
Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?
The pig, quoth I, is burned; My gold, quoth he:
My mistress, sir, quoth I; Hang up thy mistress;
I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!
Luc. Quoth who?

Dro. E. Quoth my master.

I know, quoth he, no house, no wife, no mistress;—
So that my errand, due unto my tongue,

I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;

For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.

Adr. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.

1 Home is not in the old copy: it was supplied, to complete the verse, by Capell.

Dro. E. Go back again, and be new beaten home? For God's sake, send some other messenger.

Adr. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. Dro. E. And he will bless that cross with other beating.

Between you I shall have a holy head.

Adr. Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home.

Dro. E. Am I so round1 with you, as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus? You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither. If I last in this service, you must case me in leather. [Exit. Luc. Fie, how impatience low'reth in your face! Adr. His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. Hath homely age the alluring beauty took From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it. Are my discourses dull? barren my wit? If voluble and sharp discourse be marred, Unkindness blunts it, more than marble hard. Do their gay vestments his affections bait? That's not my fault; What ruins are in me, By him not ruined?

2

he's master of my state.
that can be found

Then is he the ground

Of my defeatures. My decayed fair

A sunny look of his would soon repair.

But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,

And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.*

1 He plays upon the word round, which signifies spherical, as applied to himself; and unrestrained, or free in speech or action, as regards his mistress. The King, in Hamlet, desires the Queen to be round with her son.

2 Defeat and defeature were used for disfigurement or alteration of features. Cotgrave has "Un visage desfaict: Growne very leane, pale, wan, or decayed in feature and color."

3 Fair, strictly speaking, is not used here for fairness, as Steevens supposed; but for beauty. Shakspeare has often employed it in this sense, without any relation to whiteness of skin or complexion. The use of the adjective for the substantive, as in this instance, is not peculiar to him, but is the common practice of his contemporaries.

4 Adriana probably means she is thrown aside, forgotten, cast off, become stale to him.